“No,” she said, her feet spread in a determined stance. “We’ve come this far together, and I will not be left behind now. I have been much help to you, have I not?”
“That’s true, but—”
“Take me with you, Nick,” she broke in. “I can shoot as well as a man, and two guns will double our chances of success. It means very much to me, querido”
For a moment, I was undecided.
But what Pilar said made sense. She was a seasoned professional, tougher than most men. And she knew that she was expendable, that, if necessary for the sake of the mission, I would sacrifice her.
“Com© along then,” I said. “Since you won’t be using the Jeep to get back to town, go and pull the distributor cap so it’ll be useless to anyone who might find it helpful.” I couldn’t help adding, “You do know what a distributor cap is?”
Her full lips curved in a faintly mocking smile. “Yes, querido, I know about distributor caps and many other things you would not believe.”
I grinned back. “Okay. And you might give our friend out there another tap to keep him asleep for a while.”
“I will hurry,” she said, and, taking the .38 from me, she scurried off.
I crossed to the radio, smashed it to the floor repeatedly until the case burst open, then destroyed the guts with the butt of the guard’s rifle. During this crude disassembly, I kept an eye on Ingram, though he was being a very good boy, and was no more threat than a toothless old hound dog on a rope.
To Torio, I said, “You’ll work loose in a while, then you can walk back to Willemstad. It’s a long hike, but you’ll have time to consider better ways of making a living. Take up plumbing,” I suggested.
He barely smiled. He didn’t have much of a sense of humor.
Pilar returned carrying the distributor cap, which she held up for me with a mock curtsey. “The one out there should not wake up before noon tomorrow,” she said. “And then he will have a headache no aspirin will cure.”
“All right, Ingram,” I said, “let’s get your chopper into the air.” Then the three of us trudged across the rutted, rock-strewn ground to the waiting helicopter.
Nineteen
Ingram seemed to take charge of himself when he got behind the controls of the helicopter, and we lifted off into the night sky. We headed to the east and a little south, soon leaving the lights of Curasao behind us. The smaller island of Bonaire slipped away, too, and for awhile we had only the black Caribbean below us and the star-speckled sky above.
Presently we picked up the lights of Caracas, and for a time, followed the Venezuelan coast.
“You say this mountain hideaway of Zhizov’s is hard to spot,” I said.
“Almost impossible,” Ingram answered. “No airlines are routed to fly over the place. But if they were, they’d never see it. The buildings are constructed of the same orange-brown rock of the mountains. It’s all but invisible from the air. There are no roads leading up to it. All the supplies have to be flown in. Zhizov has a deal with one of the South American governments, I don’t know which, to fly the stuff in. My job has been to carry VIPs and those suitcases. And if I didn’t know the landmarks to guide me, I’d never find the place myself.”
We passed Trinidad off to our left and veered south to head inland over the marshy ground of the Orinoco Delta. The eastern sky began to lighten, and features of the land became visible as we thundered into the mountainous area known as the Guiana Highlands.
We had to gain altitude then, and Ingram adjusted the pitch of the rotors to take a deeper bite of the thinner air. The day grew brighter, but the high cloud cover showed no signs of dissipating.
The thought I’d been consciously avoiding forced its way into my mind. This was the day New York would die, unless I could stop it.
Ingram nudged my shoulder, breaking into my thoughts. He pointed up ahead at a rocky formation roughly in the shape of a raised fist delivering an obscene salute.
“See that up ahead?” the pilot shouted over the hammering of our engine. “That’s the landmark the pilots have to go by. Finger Mountain, we call it. Just beyond that, there’s a little rocky valley where Zhizov has set up his compound.”
“What are the chances that they’ll start shooting as soon as they see us coming in.”
“Not very likely, I think.” Ingram seemed to gain courage in the air that he lacked on the ground. “They’re pretty confident of their security up here, and copters come and go fairly often. Unless they’ve somehow got word of what happened back on Curasao, we shouldn’t have any trouble setting down.”
“Good,” I said.
“But that’s just at first. As soon as they spot you or the lady, all hell will break loose.”
“Can you give me an idea of the physical layout of the place?” I asked. “Where Zhizov’s headquarters are? Where the scientist, Warnow, does his work?”
“Nope,” Ingram said, then looked at me quickly as though to assure me of his sincerity. “Believe me, at this point, I’d tell you if I did. All I ever do is stay at the copter pad while somebody gets out or gets in, or while they load whatever they want me to carry.”
“What if you want to deliver a message?”
“I give it to the guard at the copter pad. He’ll come out and meet us. And he’ll be the first one you’ll have to deal with.”
We rounded the thrusting finger of rock, and began dropping into a narrow canyon with sheer cliffs on all sides. Even then, if I had not been searching for them, I would not have seen all the buildings, roughly constructed out of rocks. I counted four rather large structures, a small one near a patch of level ground toward which we were dropping. Low rocky ridges and boulders cluttered the whole area, and there were only faint signs of paths connecting the buildings.
As I watched, a man came out of the small structure near the helicopter pad and looked up at us. He carried a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“That’s the guard,” Ingram said.
“Is he the only one?”
“He’s the only one I’ve ever seen. There could be others.”
To Pilar I said, “Get down low so you can’t be seen.” After she was in position, I also made myself invisible.
“When we land,” I told Ingram, “signal the guard to come in close, right up to the door.”
“What if I can’t get him over here?” the pilot asked nervously, his airborne courage beginning to drain away.
Try real hard,” I answered. “As if your life depended upon it. Because, Ingram, old buddy, it does.”
We touched down gently in the small clearing and Ingram cut the engine. As the big rotor slowed to a standstill, the man with the rifle called something from where he stood, twenty feet away.
Ingram shoved the door open and yelled, “I’ve got something here for the general.”
“Are you lame?” the guard called back. “Bring it over.”
“I–I’ll need help with it,” Ingram said. “It’s too heavy for me.”
There was a silence. But then, footsteps crunched toward us on the gravelly surface. “I’m not supposed to be a porter, you know,” complained the guard. “You ought to—”
He stopped abruptly, as if he might have seen us. I knew we were in trouble when I heard the unmistakable sound of the guard unslinging his rifle and working the action. I held the Luger ready, but to risk a shot now and alarm the whole crew would be fatal. Instead, I applied pressure to my forearm and Hugo dropped into my palm. I reversed the stiletto; nipping the blade between thumb and forefinger, and rose quickly into the door opening. The guard was bringing the rifle up as I sent the blade winging toward him.